i think things felt more precious or meaningful in the past because there was just ālessā a regular degular person had access toā¦ a double-edged sword for certain to center and orient towards scarcity re: how we relate to others, but maybe holding what we have more dear because we have it instead of looking outward at what we donāt is a meaningful path forward, especially as āpost-scarcityā (especially in a media / consumer goods sense) fries our dopamine receptors and further removes friction to consume
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I'm still trying to practice what I preach here. Capitalism makes it pretty hard; they want to keep us buying things so instant pleasure and gratification is marketed and thrown at us everywhere, and makes us feel like to be accepted in society, we must always have the latest "thing." But I've started to realize nothing deeply good can come easy, or cheap for that matter. It feels way more satisfying to know I've purchased something of quality, something that means something to me, something that'll last, rather than a cheap fad that'll have to be replaced soon anyway. Not to mention knowing and caring WHERE your money is going (small businesses over large corporations, looking into what the company stands for.) There are so many times I've told myself I can't afford something I really want and am drawn to, when I've realized how much I've spent on stupid little cheap things that don't matter to me. For yourself, for others, for the planet, spend INTENTIONALLY. And if that means you end up owning less, good! And while you're at it, do a bit of Marie Condo-ing (but please, donate what you can for christ's sake.) You might experience a little withdraw with the lack of stuff and lack of spending, but I think overall you'll feel lighter, freer and more satisfied!
Jun 19, 2024
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i hope the threat of us losing something like TikTok makes people realize how little of our own shit we actually own online. if you love something and want to own it forever GO OUT AND PICK IT UP.
the stuff we own and the things we do make us who we are, donāt sleep on curating your surroundings.
Jan 13, 2025
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Donate, sell, or toss things. If you haven't used it in the last 6 months? Gone. If it doesn't fit? Gone. If you don't know what it is? Gone. But it goes beyond removing things, you have to learn to then fight the urge to over-consume again. Richard Foster says this -- "Overconsumption is a "cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals." It cuts the heart right out of our compassion. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask moral questions. For example, just because we have the economic muscle to buy up vast amounts of the world's oil, does that give us the right to do so? When the poor farmer of India is unable to buy a gallon of gasoline to run his simple water pump because the world's demand has priced him out of the market, who is to blame?" -- Overconsumption is a plague that starts with owning too many t-shirts but leads to the oppression of the poor and disenfranchised. We would do best to fight the plague at the start and become people who are less dependent on the ownership of things. Donate, sell or toss.
Dec 31, 2024
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Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason itās still standing is bc itās unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isnāt just charting the attention economy but also attempting to āsolveā it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024